Why do people who build or buy in areas that they know are going to

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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People often use what is ultimately an irrational decision process to assess risk. The process seems to be to try something, and if nothing bad happens soon after, assume it is safe. Maybe this worked for our ancestors when it came to figuring out which plants might be poisonous, but for lower probability events, it leads to disasters.

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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Make up a list of places that flood a lot and send it out on twitter that no one should live at any of these locations. Be sure you include Pennsylvania.

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You can avoid flood damage in PA and many places most of the time by buying or building a home on higher ground away from low areas and drainages. What do you do if you choose to live in an area where there is no high ground and you are within the storm surge from the ocean ? These are very different risk categories.

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The best public policy “rationale” that I could cobble together would be that, as a practical matter, places like this tend to be economic engines for which the cost of a public safety net is outweighed by what the engine puts out. Sometimes that is a function of historical inertia (eg, port cities) and others its a new tourism based economy.

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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People often use what is ultimately an irrational decision process to assess risk. The process seems to be to try something, and if nothing bad happens soon after, assume it is safe. Maybe this worked for our ancestors when it came to figuring out which plants might be poisonous, but for lower probability events, it leads to disasters.

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Interesting! Sure our ancestors had some casualties as a result of experimentation, but they were smarter than we give them credit for. As an example, the French Quarter withstood the effects of Katrina rather well. The primary reason for that is because our ancestors were astute enough to create it on (get this) HIGH GROUND! They didn’t build it below the river level. SMART!

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Interesting! Sure our ancestors had some casualties as a result of experimentation, but they were smarter than we give them credit for. As an example, the French Quarter withstood the effects of Katrina rather well. The primary reason for that is because our ancestors were astute enough to create it on (get this) HIGH GROUND! They didn’t build it below the river level. SMART!

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Well yes, but to my earlier point, there is only so much high ground near where the money is generated, but you still need the people to generate it at continuous levels. So people move into the nearby lowlands

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Practically speaking it does but it’s not as formal a program as flood insurance given the lower risk probability. California is powerful enough they can tap the fisc when they need it. Just as ny did after 911

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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Dumb post, for a number of reasons....

1. Fully 2/3 of flood insurance claims are from areas that are not considered flood zones. In other words, 2/3 of the people who file flood claims are building houses outside of those places you're griping about. Stupid people should have built at the beach. Point is, you never know where a flood can happen.
2. The vast majority of homes along the coast will never be damaged or destroyed by a hurricane. I feel quite safe 1/2 mile from the Atlantic on my little barrier island, thank you very much. Could it happen? Sure. But trust me, the odds are on my side.
3. This nation grew up along the waterways and sea coasts of this continent. Like it or not, that's where the development happened. It wasn't by accident or poor choices. If you want to complain about people in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, let me know how relocating a lot of lower Manhattan works out for you.
4. Are you advocating building outside of tornado, tsunami and earthquake areas as well? Going to get mighty crowded on that hilltop in PA you call home.

Yes, the National Flood Insurance program is subsidized by tax dollars, but it's not like people who use the system haven't paid something into it, and a lot of us who do pay into it will never make a claim (I don't live in a flood zone, I carry flood insurance by choice)

EDIT: I don't care where you live. You're one blocked storm drain from a flood.

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Why would people choose to live in areas where it snows so much? Then they expect the government to plow the streets, remove the snow, and repair the streets so they can make their daily work commute without interruption.
And those that move to high ground? Watch out for land slides!!!

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1. Fully 2/3 of flood insurance claims are from areas that are not considered flood zones. In other words, 2/3 of the people who file flood claims are building houses outside of those places you're griping about. Stupid people should have built at the beach. Point is, you never know where a flood can happen.
2. The vast majority of homes along the coast will never be damaged or destroyed by a hurricane. I feel quite safe 1/2 mile from the Atlantic on my little barrier island, thank you very much. Could it happen? Sure. But trust me, the odds are on my side.
3. This nation grew up along the waterways and sea coasts of this continent. Like it or not, that's where the development happened. It wasn't by accident or poor choices. If you want to complain about people in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, let me know how relocating a lot of lower Manhattan works out for you.
4. Are you advocating building outside of tornado, tsunami and earthquake areas as well? Going to get mighty crowded on that hilltop in PA you call home.

Yes, the National Flood Insurance program is subsidized by tax dollars, but it's not like people who use the system haven't paid something into it, and a lot of us who do pay into it will never make a claim (I don't live in a flood zone, I carry flood insurance by choice)

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As a former FEMA person, I can tell you flooding DOES happen in cities on TOP of hills. Just has to rain hard enough.....

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Practically speaking it does but it’s not as formal a program as flood insurance given the lower risk probability. California is powerful enough they can tap the fisc when they need it. Just as ny did after 911

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Quickly, are you equating 9/11 with the residual damage from a hurricane?

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Why would people choose to live in areas where it snows so much? Then they expect the government to plow the streets, remove the snow, and repair the streets so they can make their daily work commute without interruption.
And those that move to high ground? Watch out for land slides!!!

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My taxes pay for the township to remove snow.
If people want to live in areas likely to experience large scale disasters at relatively regular intervals, they should be willing to accept the risks and pay accordingly for insurance and maintaining homes that can better cope with likely disasters. They need to have good disaster plans that include evacuating.
And hilltops don’t flood as badly as riverfronts.

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Well yes, but to my earlier point, there is only so much high ground near where the money is generated, but you still need the people to generate it at continuous levels. So people move into the nearby lowlands

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I think these people are referred to as "lowlanders" in the local vernacular.

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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Because they know that when the inevitable happens, you'll help pay for the repairs. And, they really appreciate it!

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My taxes pay for the township to remove snow.
If people want to live in areas likely to experience large scale disasters at relatively regular intervals, they should be willing to accept the risks and pay accordingly for insurance and maintaining homes that can better cope with likely disasters. They need to have good disaster plans that include evacuating.
And hilltops don’t flood as badly as riverfronts.

You go down to your local haberdashery to buy a belt. Chances are good that belt was made overseas. Somebody had to unload the ship the belt came in on. Somebody had to load it on a truck, or a train to get that belt to your local haberdashery.

Do you expect that person to live 50 miles away, up on a hill? Of course not. As I said in an earlier post, rivers and oceans are where the population of this country congregated for transportation reasons. Those reasons still exist. Do you want to abandon all of our ports, or do you want people to live 30 miles from them?

Tourism is another reason. Tens of millions of people vacation at our nation's beaches. Do you want to eliminate those types of vacations? Or do you simply want zero infrastructure at those beaches? You want to pack up your beach chairs at the end of the day and have to drive 20 miles to the nearest hotel or restaurant?

You can't simply abandon those areas that might flood. As a country, we've reasoned that those areas are going to be inhabited. If they are going to have to be inhabited, we've chosen to have a program, somewhat subsidized by tax dollars, to help those inhabitants where natural disaster strikes.

You think it doesn't benefit you? Well, yeah it kinda does. How are you going to buy that belt?

There are plenty of programs in this country that benefit only a portion of the population. You want to single out the flood insurance program?

Gold Member

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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Well walleye you ask a question that is really pretty complicated.
. If you live by the ocean and are concerned with storm surge you are forced if you have a mortgage to buy flood insurance. On top of that we need to buy wind and hail and fire insurance so the insurance bill is quite high. We haver a home right in the hurricane zone [southeastern coast of NC] we evacuated and probably won't get on our island for days. I expect no help and will get none if we have damage. You live near tghe ocean you roll the dice.
. Inland flooding is a different story. Often this is caused by dams breaking and downstream gets flooded. That seems like govt played a role by not having an adequate dam or levy program. See Katrina and Ponchetrain.

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You go down to your local haberdashery to buy a belt. Chances are good that belt was made overseas. Somebody had to unload the ship the belt came in on. Somebody had to load it on a truck, or a train to get that belt to your local haberdashery.

Do you expect that person to live 50 miles away, up on a hill? Of course not. As I said in an earlier post, rivers and oceans are where the population of this country congregated for transportation reasons. Those reasons still exist. Do you want to abandon all of our ports, or do you want people to live 30 miles from them?

Tourism is another reason. Tens of millions of people vacation at our nation's beaches. Do you want to eliminate those types of vacations? Or do you simply want zero infrastructure at those beaches? You want to pack up your beach chairs at the end of the day and have to drive 20 miles to the nearest hotel or restaurant?

You can't simply abandon those areas that might flood. As a country, we've reasoned that those areas are going to be inhabited. If they are going to have to be inhabited, we've chosen to have a program, somewhat subsidized by tax dollars, to help those inhabitants where natural disaster strikes.

You think it doesn't benefit you? Well, yeah it kinda does. How are you going to buy that belt?

There are plenty of programs in this country that benefit only a portion of the population. You want to single out the flood insurance program?

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So, you are saying that people who live in flood or storm surge prone areas shouldn’t have to pay higher insurance because of that risk ? Just want to get that straight.
And where did I advocate depopulating coastal areas ? Isn’t that getting a little overly dramatic ? We obviously disagree about whether developing these areas should be subsidized on the insurance side of things. It’s a little different than taxes paying to maintain roads. Without actual numbers, it’s a pointless exercise, anyway.

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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I might be able to address this question. We own beachfront real estate on the North Carolina coast that is getting pounded as we speak. It’s not our primary residence. We’ve taken measures in construction to protect ourselves, though as others have said, nothing is foolproof. We are highly insured. The “expect the government to bail us out” part of your statement I don’t follow. I can tell you that the enjoyment we’ve had from our place is transformational. Worth all of it...

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Quickly, are you equating 9/11 with the residual damage from a hurricane?

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No I am saying when improbable cataclysmic events occur in large states, large states are very good at accessing the federal fisc to get them fixed without a standing program like flood insurance. Nothing judgemental intended.

Gold Member

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be flooded expect the Govt. or taxpayers to pay for their stupidity. They know that sooner or later they are going to be hit by a bad storm or flooded. And why does the Govt. get blamed for all the damage. People are stupid, especially the one's who have sympathy for the idiots who build or buy in such areas.

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Exactly where are all these "safe" spots?
You've got Tornado alley running from North Texas through western Kansas, and OK, pretty much all of Nebraska and Eastern South Dakota.
Iowa, Missouri, New Orleans flood. California, is burning and when its not has mudslides and earth quakes, the East coast...well we see whats happening there. The gulf coast, yea not so much so. Hawaii nope, Pacific Northwest, well its burning too and well Mt. St. Helens and all. So where does that leave people to build?
SMH.

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It's a bit of a tangent, but in terms of New Orleans and Katrina, while the damage to the gulf shore can be attributed to Katrina, the flooding in New Orleans was due to a levee breach. The storm surge did not rise over the levees, the levees failed. That's more akin to an engineering or maintenance failure like a bridge collapse.

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It's a bit of a tangent, but in terms of New Orleans and Katrina, while the damage to the gulf shore can be attributed to Katrina, the flooding in New Orleans was due to a levee breach. The storm surge did not rise over the levees, the levees failed. That's more akin to an engineering or maintenance failure like a bridge collapse.

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Many have said the NFIP should not cover building in 100 year floodplains, assuming that the maps are accurate. Another nugget I found is that just 1% of the claims are repeptitive and account for 10% of the program costs. Often these claims don’t result in any mitigations that would reduce costs the next time around.
The experts say that a lot of the development right up to the ocean’s edge, with no marshes or breaks made storms like Katrina and Harvey a lot worse. If somebody can afford a ten million dollar beachfront vacation home I might be in the minority, but I resent paying the insurance bill for something that is essentially a luxury.

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Those mansions are often forcibly over-insured and many simply self insure. HOA's and POA's near the water pool resident's dues and pay gigantic premiums yearly that may never result in a single claim. Same for condos.